This Is Experimental I don't know how to paint

an abstract self-portrait on canvas with accompanying photographs of process and final product. Journal entries scratched on 35mm film.

I painted strokes around my shadow of my motion and whatever flows onto my canvas. Each stroke color is different depending on the mood I feel using color theory. The colors will blend and bleed into each other sometimes. A tripod is placed in the same spot every time I paint, and will — with a self-timer — take shots of me during the process. The last photo is the artwork on its own, without my “presence” signifying that I am in the artwork — it represents me.

Connection in this piece is multi-faceted - it’s connection though the artwork on the canvas in which multiple brushstrokes are blending with each other. It’s the connection between myself and my emotions for that day, it’s acknowledging them and allowing them to flow. It’s connection between me and my artwork. It’s connection in understanding that all these separate feelings that make me go through my day differently each time, is essentially who I am.

Transcript:

I feel overwhelmed. Expectations to meet. My own of myself. Those of others.

Hypnotic Poison

During my college years, I have been writing down quotes that I have said in my head or quotes of things people have told me. This is a narrative compilation of those past years.

The only quote I do not take credit for is the last “But I did look back, and I love myself because it was human.” I changed the wording but the inspiration of the quote was elsewhere - I do not remember the source specifically.

Photo editorial for Raíz Magazine.

Fly Boutique

Shot on digital and film — edits by me.

Model: Maryah Dinane

Style: Fly Boutique

Eva Hynes

Commissioned photo shoot for influencer Eva Hynes.

Instagram: @evammaline

Cobblestone Garden

I got these two one of a kind vintage tops at a shuk (a market) in Israel.

Shot on film.

Model: Yevgeniya Lopatina

Index Magazine Fashion Showcase

INDEX Magazine, an Emerson College publication, hosts a fashion showcase with local designers.

Shot on film.

Antidote X

Antidote X fashion show models.

Detachment

Photo Editorial for EM Magazine. Written words by Caroline Knight.

http://www.em-mag.com/posts/2018/11/3/detachment

Artist Statement:

During adolescence, I had a deep attachment to “things.” These “things” included mundane objects like my pair of socks that fell into a lake. I made a diver go in and get it for me. It also included, however, an attachment to intangible “things,” such as memories. Memories of life, friends, lovers, family, childhood. I later learned that this intangible list extended to people too. Yes, people have a physical presence, but sometimes you cannot just hold onto them. They become a figment of your imagination - no longer tangible.

I never wanted things to end, feelings to end. It felt as though I was holding on to something that I was no longer connected to. What once was a connection felt like it was never a connection. I realized that being so attached to anything left me feeling disappointed, unhappy and lost when I lost it. It felt like I lost something I was so connected to. It was like a physical attachment, a physical connection – the idea of being one. I began to understand that I could be connected to something, someone and not be attached to them. Connection is connection because it is felt and understood. Those are things I cherish and hold with reverence, but I should be able to detach myself from that feeling and let is stand as a connection I had.

When I was detached, I kept my individual-self separate from a connection I had with something/someone. This didn’t mean I didn’t have a connection with that other. In this way, I am my own and I have this connection with someone else, but it doesn’t mean I need to be “one” with that thing/being. While it’s romanticized to be “one” — more specifically — with someone, I’ve always thought it much more beautiful to be your own and one with someone else. To be your own, I have to be in ways detached but I can still keep that one-on-one connection.

127 Film

Mamacita

Cut Piece, 2018

art of observance

Beautiful earrings by Art of Observance.

Shot on digital and film.

Model: Gabrielle Brenn

Striped Series

Color block

Shot on film.

Model: Yevgeniya Lopatina

Earrings by Joy

Shot, styled, and edited by me for puff ball earrings by a friend of mine, April Joy Vérité.

Shot on digital.

Models: April Vérité and Cheyenne Mueller

The Sugar Woman

Commissioned by creative producer & stylist, Sam Sugarman.

Eco-Echo

BTS from a photo shoot for Index Magazine.

Army pants designed by me.

Shot on film.

stellar

Shot on digital.

Model: Stella Brack

mixed media

Photos shot on film.

untitled

Compilation of singular shots — on film.

sex, drugs, and rock n roll

For this project, I used digital photographs, song lyrics, and small drawings on school paper to create these multi-media pieces. The idea was to create a grunge, rock and roll feel. In each piece, they embody at least one of three feels — sex, drugs, and rock n roll.

Shot on digital.

Model: Stella Brack

how to be human

Digital and analogue, and multi-media collage work.

The intention of this series was to add commentary on our animality: "What can we learn from our animality on what it means to be human?" Thus the idea was to portray the “animal” in each human. Further, questioning what is seen as being an “animal,” what is not, and how that would connect to being a human. Giorgio Agamben, in The Open: Man and Animal suggests that humans will lose the characteristics that they share with animals. This includes things like eating, sleeping, having sex, and getting rid of waste in their bodies. The idea of assimilating our beastiality into our humanity was important to touch upon because it’s ingrained in our nature to have barbaric tendencies. Portraying, as Agamben discusses, the “reconciliation of man with his animal nature” was a theme constant in the project. These pieces, then, are making commentary on the fact that we can’t steer away from our animal instincts, nor should we have shame in doing so.

The concept of shame is also important in considering humanism. The idea of shame comes from the book of Genesis and our first sin — our sexuality. Incorporating Christianity to this idea of shame, as Christianity is the root of feeling shame and shaming one’s body, was a vital point in the series. So, what does it mean when one goes against shame and the Christian dogma that our sexuality is wrong? In The Real Paganism, Nietzsche in accordance to Christianity states that “they do not repudiate the natural drive that finds expression in the evil qualities but regulate it...” What about when we don’t regulate it, what if we don’t regulate our temptations and desires?

As humans we’re not a clearly defined species; we just make commentary on what a human should be. Rather than living as humans we are constantly trying to question it, and we use religion as a means to further this notion. We are in this societal structure because as humans we created this to disassociate ourselves from our animalistic tendencies. The intentions, then, are to demonstrate the animal in us all that we continuously suppress to fit the status quo. What happens when we lose this concept of Bad Conscience, the idea of in which aggressive tendencies are expressed towards the self, as introduced by Nietzsche in Genealogy of Morals? Can we stop shaming ourselves for our animalistic instincts? Can we become the overman, one free of the prejudices and moralities of human society, and who creates his own values and purpose, as Nietzsche states in Thus Spoke Zarathursta?